


'Cause I've Been Waiting For You (For So Long)

by blackorchids



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: 2nd POV, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Human Elena, I Love You, Minor Elena Gilbert/Stefan Salvatore, alaric is alive, elena pov, no humanity damon salvatore, slow-build, this is the best thing i've ever written i s2g
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 06:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1256635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saying those three little words shouldn't be nearly this hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Cause I've Been Waiting For You (For So Long)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Coming Home by OneRepublic
> 
> This fic is written in 2nd person, which is something I've never really done much of before, but I really like the way it turned out. I started it long before season 5 started, and originally Rebekah was going to be involved instead of Enzo, but Enzo is just so much more fun. I've been messing about with this damn fic for months and months now, and it's finally finished and it feels exhilarating, to be frank.
> 
> Based on this post from tumblr: http://flyoverthehighestmountaintop.tumblr.com/post/78280461996

It was a completely stupid, terrible, _reckless_ idea. You think that might just be why you’d agreed. Get completely smashed in the midst of the supernatural war that’s going on right under the noses of the townspeople. Caroline had suggested it and Bonnie had agreed and the thought of letting go and the chance of forgetting what your name was (much less the fact that you’re some sort of special doppelganger with special doppelganger blood that _everyone_ seems to want to take from you)--the chance was simply alluring. Too good to pass up, even if it was a far cry from possible. 

You think you could ask to have this all wiped from your mind--clean and easy, with compulsion-- but you’re worried that even then, you’ll still _know_. Still remember what it means to fear for the lives of everyone you’ve ever known and loved, even if your brain had been forced to forget _why_.

Caroline had compelled the man at the liquor store to let yous buy all of the alcohol you’d wanted, though, with the way the man had leered at the three of you, you think he might have let you get away with it anyway. Caroline’s always had a fondness for coconut rum, and you’d never guess, but Bonnie was _so_ a tequila girl, once you got her going. You, on the other hand, weren’t much in the mood for partying. Damon’s voice echoed through your head, even as you bought the largest bottle of Smirnoff’s you could find, calling you a cliche, fondness wrapped in exasperation. He’d never understood why teenage girls always went for the vodka.

Bonnie’s slumped against the couch in the dim light of the overturned lamp and Caroline is spinning aimlessly in front of the coffee table, the thin cotton of her dress fanning out gracefully, in a way that reminds you of those stupid movies the three of you always watch. You’re on the other end of the couch, phone clutched in your hand, Damon’s contact name open. Your finger is poised to press the little green call button, and Caroline’s slurred voice is urging you on. She’d had an entire bottle of rum all to herself, and then had moved on to help you along with your vodka, and her vampire immune system is the only reason she’s not currently passed out in a drunken stupor right now.

“Obviously there’s something there,” she’s saying, her voice very slurred, because Caroline’s words are always the first to go. “Why do you think Stefan hates it when the two of you are alone?”

Your finger presses the button before you can make the conscious decision that, _yes_ , you’re going to call Damon, but Caroline doesn’t notice, leaving the room to go check and see if there’s any more alcohol in their big green tote bag on the counter in the kitchen. Damon doesn’t pick up, and, well, it’s two o’clock in the morning on a Wednesday and what are you even _doing_ , but you’re talking and you can’t seem to stop, the words pouring out of your mouth, as though they’re rushing to be said before you can manage to shut yourself up.

“Damon, I’m so sorry about what I said earlier, Damon,” you start hastily, “I didn’t mean it and you know I didn’t mean it and, Damon, I know I didn’t mean it and it was stupid of me to say it and I just--I just wanted to _hurt_ you and I can’t believe that I’d ever possibly want to cause you any harm at all because, well, you’re my best friend in the whole world, and you have to know that, Damon. You’re, like, the most important person in my life, Damon, besides Jeremy and, _god_ , Damon, I don’t know what I’d do without you, Damon, I need you to keep being my friend. Damon,” you sigh breathlessly, before picking up again, “Please don’t ever go away, please stay with me; I know it’s so, ridiculously selfish of me to say that after I pulled the Stefan card again but, Damon, you have to understand, I don’t know what I’m doing here. We could all be killed tomorrow and I’m too busy worrying about you and everyone else and, Damon, I want to sort out all of my feelings about everything, but I can’t because I’m scared and I can’t lose you, but I can’t lose Stefan either, Damon--please--you have to know I’m not intentionally hurting you, I--” the phone beeps and you’re too busy sitting, absolutely stunned at what had been about to leave your mouth, to listen to the little automated voice that’s saying that time is up. 

You think you might be a little more sober. You don’t know what’s going to happen now.

-

Stefan storms out of the boarding house, slamming the door behind him and you’re left in the foyer, heart pounding furiously. You can’t remember a single time before that the pair of you have had such an explosive fight, and, underneath the fury and indignation, you’re exhilarated and you feel like you could climb to the top of the world, and the fact that this fight was about _Damon_ is not lost on you at all.

It’d been two peaceful weeks in which no one brought up your rambling, drunken confession to Damon’s voicemail, and all it had taken to disrupt that peace was your lips uttering the words ‘Damon thinks--’ before Stefan had snapped. Admittedly, you were the first one to start yelling, and half of what kept you going was the surprised look that Stefan had when you did. You never yell at _Stefan_.

You’d known from the beginning that Damon’s jealousy was _nothing_ compared to that of his little brother’s--Stefan had told you himself, so very long ago, back when the biggest worry in your life was that your boyfriend was a vampire; he’d explained that he didn’t _care_ that he’d taken what Damon had wanted--all he cared about was having Katherine as his own. There’s a whole boatload of issues and bad blood between the Salvatore brothers, and Stefan’s biggest issue is the weird friendship between you and Damon.

 _I won’t share another girl with him_ , Elena, Stefan had hollered at you, jaw tight, eyes flashing, not just with anger, but with a little bit of the predator that lurked beneath the surface. _I will not do it_.

You don’t know if the pair of you have just broken up and, despite whatever feelings you have yet to sort out for Damon, the idea that you two just might have is excruciating enough to drain all of the adrenaline from your body.

You don’t even know how Stefan heard the message, because you’re positive Damon didn’t show it to him. Damon hasn’t tried to break the pair of you up in _ages_ now, and you’re not sure what that means, but you’re grateful for the lack of that little extra tension. You love Stefan, really, you do, and the idea that you might have lost the boy who’s most of the reason why you’re still alive and kicking and fighting to stay that way, well.

The idea of a world without Stefan in it at all hurts so much that you hunch over, one hand on your knees, the other kneading at the flesh and bone above your heart. All of the fight in you is gone and you feel like an abandoned balloon a week after a child’s party--deflated and alone.

Except you’re not alone, you remember at the last minute. Damon’s there before you can blink, straightening you out and pulling you in, his arms wrapping around you tight, holding you together. You hug him hard, fingers grasping and pulling at his t-shirt, one hand snaking underneath his customary leather jacket and pressing into the small of his back with enough force to bruise a human. Damon’s got a hand smoothing down over your hair and, as the tears finally leak over your eyes--why are you always _crying_?--he gently guides your face into the warm crook of his neck.

He tells you that Stefan will be back, reassures you that his brother may be an idiot, but he wouldn’t let the best thing to ever happen to him slip through his fingers quite so easily. You listen to him reassure you about your relationship with his _brother_ , despite what he feels for you, and more tears escape your eyes in torrents. You’re positive he doesn’t know these ones are for him, and that’s okay, you think, your mouth half-open and pressed hard against his skin, mumbling replies that aren’t real and words too incoherent for even him to understand.

You thank him about a dozen times, lips pressed tight against the vein in his neck, and if you say anything else, well. It’s not like he could hear it anyway.

-

Stefan's gone for the weekend, having taken Katherine and moving west because he'd decided the wildlife population near Mystic Falls had drastically decreased. You don't quite understand what Katherine has to do with all of this, but it's not like Stefan would explain it if you asked.

You feel restless, and a little insane, and the door to the boarding house is actually locked for the first time in possibly a hundred years, so you're climbing in through a window in the library, hoisting yourself up and over with the sort of upper-body strength you didn't have before half the people you knew were vampires.

Tumbling over the window ledge and toppling a stack of books over on your way to the floor, you jerk up in surprise when the sound of Damon's laughter rings out from above.

"Elena," he says fondly, and you clamor to your feet with dignity you don't actually have, brushing off your clothes of dust that's not actually there. "This is a pleasant deviation from the norm."

"You mean where _you're_ the one breaking and entering through a window?" you reply, embarrassment staining the apples of your cheekbones with a faint warmth.

"Not breaking," Damon corrects smoothly and you can feel a smile tugging at your lips.

"Let's do something," you say instead of bothering to reply to that technicality. "Stefan's gone and let's do something _fun_." Okay, so that had sounded worse than you meant it too, but Damon's in a nice enough mood to just smirk at your wording before raising a single, dark eyebrow.

"What did you have in mind?" he asks, voice completely devoid of the curiosity blazing in his eyes.

"Come on," you urge, smiling because you've already won. You tangle your fingers with his and tug him through the house and to your car, wondering how many glasses of wine he'll have to compel you before you muster up the courage to do what you _really_ want to do.

Damon thinks you're joking all the way up to the maître-d in the fancy Italian restaurant a town over. The man behind the little counter asks if you two are the "Gilbert party" and, swallowing a laugh at Damon's startled expression, you tug off the oversized hoodie you're wearing to expose a deep red blouse that is much more in line with the atmosphere. Another minute and you've taken your hair out of it's ponytail at the crown of your head and shaken it out, and you drag Damon forward towards the table you'd reserved in advance.

"You broke into my house wearing _that_?" is all Damon seems to be able to focus on, his eyes roving over the silky red number as though he is trying to commit it to memory. You have the errant thought that it's lucky Damon's always dressed to go somewhere nice, otherwise his surprise wouldn't have been nearly as sweet.

The restaurant is dim, candles providing most of the light, the table cloths are crisp white, and there is a girl duo in one corner, one on the piano and the other crooning soft words into a microphone. You expected the romantic atmosphere--counted on it, really--but now it's making you flush, and you draw up your shoulders a little bit out of embarrassment. This awkward silence isn’t ever filmed in the movies you used to watch with Caroline and Bonnie.

It doesn't take him long, though, to snap out of his shock, and then, suddenly, Damon seems completely at ease and you eat and laugh and talk about mundane things and you learn more about Damon in a single night than you had in the last two years of knowing him.

"I must say, Elena," he says after taking a sip of the blood-red wine that had been placed in front of them after their meals have been cleared away, "I didn't expect such an elaborate scheme to get me to go on a date with you."

His voice is teasing, but the genuine delight in his eyes is the only thing stopping you from clamming up and shouting that this _isn't_ a date and babbling some nonsense about how it'll always be Stefan.

Instead, you twist around a bit to fiddle in your purse, carefully drawing out a small, delicately-wrapped parcel. The paper is silvery, and the ribbon is a deep, satiny blue, and you set it in the center of the table with a little infuriating smirk of your own.

"Happy birthday, Damon," you say and there is a moment of silence before he lets out a shocked little laugh.

"How did you know?" he asks, reaching over after a minute to gently pluck the package from the table and shift it back and forth between his hands.

"Rummaged through your attic," you admit, laughing a little embarrassedly. "Found your civil war registration card."

Damon' eyes are unbearably soft when he looks up at you, clearly a little touched at how much trouble you'd gone through just to do something nice for him. Your eyes are locked together for a long moment before he glances down at the gift in his hands.

"It's not much," you say honestly as he gently slips the ribbon off and turns the package over, sliding a finger under the edge and hitching it across.

You've never thought about it before, but you wouldn't have ever pegged Damon as one who saves the wrapping paper, and then you remember the box of letters Stefan had sent while Damon was enlisted in the Confederacy and think maybe there's a lot of things you'd be wrong about.

Inside the wrapping is a smooth black box and then he's pulling off the lid and turning it over so that the contents will fall into his palm.

It's a sleek, platinum watch with a big face and all sorts of fancy qualities. You know absolutely nothing about watches, but Mayor Lockwood had gotten your father a similar one when he'd finally opened up his own practice.

"Elena," Damon says your name like a prayer and a condemnation all at once and you flush a little. "This is too much-- _thank you_."

"The salesman says the battery lasts a lifetime and that the watch would survive a war." you announce blithely and that draws another startled laugh from him, the both of you grinning wryly at the irony.

Your phone's ringtone sounds jarring when it interrupts the endless staring the pair of you have been doing and you answer it without bothering to look at the caller ID. Stefan's voice, curious more than anything else, sounds through the speaker just as Damon asks who is on the other end.

"Stefan," you say helplessly, and watch as Damon's face shuts down and listen to the silence on the other end, sure that your boyfriend has heard his brother's voice. 

"I came home early," Stefan says at last, his voice stiff and unusually formal. "But I suppose you don't much care one way or another."

"Stef--" you try again, wincing, watching as Damon stuffs the watch and the wrappings into the box and pockets it all without grandiose. He's standing and he's got one of his fake smiles on, and his eyes are completely closed off from the world and from her.

"I'll call you later," Stefan says shortly from the phone, and he hangs up without an 'I love you' or even a goodbye, and you wonder how such a good night had gone so bad, so fast. 

-

You and Stefan muddle through your flimsy facade of a relationship for another two weeks after Damon's birthday-gone-wrong. Stefan's short-tempered and brusque and you're cold and distant, and you both wonder desperately where the epic love of the beginning days went.

You're finally the one to call it quits, touching him on the arms and the face more in a handful of minutes than you have in the past couple months. He's rueful and a smidgen of bitterness seeps through, but he's gentle and understanding as well, a flash of _your_ Stefan shining through underneath the heaping pile of absolute crap the two of you have turned your relationship into.

He brushes your hair back from your face behind your ears and he tells you that it's _okay_ , and you cry a little when the pair of you hug right before you leave. You are going to try and be friends, but it will take time and it will take effort, because you've only ever been a couple; leaping into dating and epic love before you even found out when his birthday was or what his favorite color is.

Stefan brushes away your tears with his thumbs and presses a soft kiss on your forehead and it feels too much like goodbye. You have to pull over to the side of the road on your way home, the tears are blurring your eyesight so much, and it's there that you shut off your car and begin to have a good, proper cry.

Damon gives you an entire week.

He only texts once, on that first day after, to make sure you got home safely, and that you're not about to go jump off Wickery Bridge, and then it's seven days of radio silence on his end. You don't go over to the Boarding House, and he does not sneak in through your window.

It is a lonely week.

On the eighth night, you come out of the bathroom, teeth freshly brushed, face scrubbed clean of make-up, favorite purple pajamas on, and he's there, sprawled across your white duvet. His black t-shirt and dark jeans are a sharp contrast to the color and you pause at the doorway for just a minute to _look_.

"Hey," he says after the minute, his voice a little subdued, and you feel a sudden rush of affection for this man in front of you.

"Hi," you murmur, turning off your lamp and climbing into bed on the free side, pulling your covers up over your shoulders as you turn on your side to face him. Damon's eyes are silver in the dark, and he's looking at you as though you're made of gold; as though he is a blind man seeing the sun for the first time, and he _always_ looks at you like that, even when you're making him angrier than he's ever been.

Damon shifts around until he's under the blanket with you and then he's inhumanely still. "You okay?" He whispers, and you nod jerkily.

"Now I am," you breathe, scooting closer to him and tangling your legs close. It has always astounded you how _warm_ he is--how much warmer than Stefan his body is--and you wonder if it is yet another perk of drinking the human stuff. 

Damon pulls you flush against him and tucks his face into your neck and you're tingling at the thought that you don't even have a single, split second of fear that he could hurt you. He holds you for a long time, and your breathing steadies and your heart rate slows, and it is a blurry eternity spent in the bubble of safety that Damon's arms; Damon's presence provides.

Even when he's finally nodded off, his breath coming warm and slow against your collarbone, his grip is firm and possessive, and you tangle a hand into the hair at the back of his head, holding him to you because you don't ever want him to leave.

You're about to follow him into the land of unconsciousness when the words fall from your mouth into the inky black of his hair, nothing more than an exhalation, and certainly not loud enough to wake him from his rest.

-

It's three weeks into this strange too-intimate friendship you and Damon have got going on, when you stumble downstairs at mid morning, in nothing but an oversized shirt and a pair of violently blue boyshorts. Sleeping in is something you used to adore, and then the whole supernatural war thing going on had stolen any semblance of a proper sleep-schedule. The fact that it is already lunch time and there has not yet been training or a blood-bank run or an emergency of epic proportions is kind of overwhelming.

Damon's in the kitchen, wearing Jenna's horribly pink 'keep your hands off my buns' apron, tied in the back with a ridiculous bow. He's got a mug of steaming coffee sitting on the counter and the makings of what looks like chicken parmigiana in the oven. The radio is blasting music from the 80's, and every time the announcer calls it 'the oldies,' Damon's nose wrinkles, just a little bit.

You edge forward, completely sure that he knows you're here, and sniff at the coffee to make sure it's not laced with bourbon or blood (or both, as he is partial to) before taking a huge gulp of it and shaking out your hair like some kind of satisfied lion.

Instead of sitting at the counter, you set the mug back down and round the island, wrapping your arms around his waist and pressing your cheek against the centre of his back, because he's making you and Jeremy lunch and he's being patient and not pushing his way into the role of your boyfriend and he's gone and remembered exactly how you take your coffee, special creamer and all.

"Hi," you mumble, closing your eyes in contentment. Damon carefully spins around so that the pair of you are pressed together from shoulder to knee, hugging for an endless amount of time in the bright kitchen of your childhood home.

The song your parents used to dance to comes on and you press the pads of your fingers into his shoulder blades, the fond memories wrapping you up in something that no longer feels like the end of the world.

"Hi," Damon says belatedly, his voice quiet as he sways you back and forth while REO croons out a melody that feels light enough to float upon.

The fact that you and Damon are dancing to the same song, in the same kitchen, in much the same way as your parents used to swells up inside of you like some living, growing thing. It's pressing against your heart and tugging at your tongue, and, before you can stop yourself, you blurt it out.

"I love you," you say, just as REO sings _When I said that I love you, I meant that I love you forever_ and Damon doesn't stop slowly twirling the pair of you around, but you're close enough that you feel the sharp intake of breath. Suddenly, any courage the scene may have given you has shriveled up and died and you're hastily tacking on, "when you cook for me and Jer."

The guilt is heavy in your gut, and Damon tries his very best to not react, you can tell, but his fingers are somehow less a part of you than they were two seconds ago. Despite this, he keeps dancing with you all the same, and you keep your your head tucked in the crook of his neck, face turned out toward the French doors, your mind once again on the image your parents had created when they did this.

-

 _Damon_ , you write in clear, loopy handwriting at the top of the page. You think you're actually going to go through with it this time; you're going to tell him the truth.

_When I first met you in the Boarding House almost two years ago, you made my heart race, and you smiled because you knew._

_I spent so long fighting what I felt for you, because I was so determined to not be like Katherine. I was already with Stefan, and I refused to play you both. That single-minded thought process was only strengthened the night we got into the tomb. You didn't see yourself, Damon, and I doubt Stefan was paying much attention either. But you looked like your whole world had just collapsed--like everything you ever knew or thought had been proven wrong in one fell swoop._

_You looked like you'd just had your heart ripped from your chest, and I refused to be the one to put that look on your face again._

_I was with Stefan, and you were hurting over Katherine, and I spent entirely too much time reminding myself why I shouldn't entertain the idea of us._

_I think, though, that in my determination to not be like Katherine, I forgot, a little, how to be like me._

_You make me feel alive, Damon. Just casual brushes of your skin on mine sets me alight inside. Your eyes are my favorite color, your voice is the only thing I want to listen to for the absolute rest of my life, and nothing makes me feel safer than being wrapped in your arms._

_I'm not like Katherine, Damon, because I'm going to choose. And I'm choosing you._

You're trembling a little by the time you finish writing. Your hand is cramping from how tightly you were holding the pen, and you're breathing as though you've just run a marathon.

You can hear Damon downstairs, crowing gleefully that he's gone and pummeled Jeremy yet again in Halo, and the fact that he is going to turn in for the night and that that means he is going to come up here and slip into bed with you the way he's been doing for a month now is enough to set your heart on some sort of thundering rampage.

You drop the pen and scrunch up the paper with a single hand, dropping it into your waste basket and fly into bed, switching off the lamp and curling up on your side under the covers, trying desperately to get your heart rate under control.

When Damon finally makes his way into your room, silently closing the door behind him, you scrunch your eyes closed and try to relax. You know the routine: he'll change and brush his teeth clean of his evening mug of blood, he'll look out the window for a few moments at the moon, and then he'll slip into bed beside you.

By the time the mattress on the other side dips under his weight, your feigned sleep has transferred into real sleep.

-

Thirty seconds pass and you’re just staring blankly at Stefan, your lips parted a little bit in absolute shock. He’s looking at you in concern, and he’s worried himself, and the words just refuse to stick in your brain. They’re simply rattling around, twisting and morphing, repeating themselves over and over again.

 _Enzo’s got Damon_.

“What?” you manage at last and Stefan swallows, looking a whole lot like he’d rather not repeat it. Alaric’s standing behind you protectively, Jeremy is to your left, Caroline and Bonnie opposite him. The whole gang is here, you think blandly, but the missing piece is glaring in it’s absence. Damon’s not here. _Damon’s not here because Enzo’s got him_. “We have to save him!” you say, hysteria creeping into your voice. “Who is Enzo?”

“All I know,” Stefan says slowly--so, so _slowly_ , as though they have all the time in the world to spare, “is that they were friends in the fifties, and Damon pissed him off.”

Alaric laughs humorlessly at this and you swivel your head around to look at him, scruffy beard and mussed up hair. You think he came from either napping or drinking, and the sight is so familiar that it is almost comforting.

“‘course he did,” Ric says after a minute, almost fondly.

“What’s the plan?” Caroline asks, clapping her hands together soundly and ignoring Bonnie’s scoff and resigned sigh. Elena’s scarcely listening, the sound of rushing water roaring into her ears and the pressure against her chest growing every second. She can’t breathe or move and she’s _drowning_ and Damon could be _dying_ and--

“Elena,” Stefan says, his hands gripping her forearms in the same way they did when they broke up. Everyone has left the room, presumably to gather supplies, but Stefan’s wide green eyes and the familiar tilt of his lips combined with the slightly painful pressure on your arms is enough to get you breathing again, gasping for air as though you really had been under water. “Elena,” he says again, and you focus your blurry gaze onto his face, “we’re going to get him back.”

 _We’re going to get him back_.

Of course you are, you think blandly. What other option is there?

 

You don’t get him back.

 

Stefan and Ric drive the lot of you up and down the east coastline of the country, following leads and trails of dead bodies and the irony of the entire situation is not lost on you--looking for the lost Salvatore brother you’re in love with, accompanied by the other one and your history teacher-turned stepfather-turned unofficial guardian.

Slowly but surely, your rag-tag group is reduced to the three of you; Caroline having dropped out to console her worrying mother, Bonnie needing to spend some time with her father, Jeremy having to go back to school.

Stefan and Ric make the decision to stop looking when the three of you find a warning carved, neatly and with an astonishing amount of precision, into someone’s back. You remember Stefan’s ripper days: blood and gore and huge messes, but you also remember Damon way back when the brothers first blew into town, and you know that, unlike his little brother, Damon had never, ever lost full control over himself, even when his switch was off. Damon’s crafty and meticulous in his fear-and-intimidation tactics, unlike the ripper, who is just brutal and vicious.

And Damon doesn’t want to be found.

 

You cry for days.

 

It takes you a week, but you finally drag yourself out of bed and away from the pillow that doesn’t even smell of Damon any longer. You spend an entire hour in the shower, wishing the steam could rid your heart of sad the same way it rids the pores in your skin of seven days of filth. Most of the hour is spent sitting in the tub, the scalding water falling in rivulets around you, turning your skin pink with the heat and the pressure.

You’re not going to give up on him, you decide. And then you stand up to wash your hair.

It doesn’t take much to convince Stefan to start looking again. Your hair is still wet and dripping, hanging in a sheet across the plain t-shirt you yanked on, and you made it to the boarding house in a record thirteen minutes after you stepped out of the shower. This is _Damon_ , you say desperately to the one person who will understand, and he does. Stefan is the only other person in the world who would go to the ends of the earth for that black-haired, blue-eyed menace.

You call Jeremy after you and Stefan pass the border line into North Carolina. Jeremy is less likely to lecture you than Ric, you think, and you’re right. Your younger brother just sighs a whole lot before telling you to be safe.

Stefan had always made his way to Chicago when he was on his benders, he tells you, but Damon had always embraced his southern roots. The pair of you are heading straight to New Orleans. You’re going to get Damon back if you have to stuff him with vervain and lock him in the incredibly cramped trunk of Stefan’s tiny red car.

You and Stefan spend three days lurking around New Orleans, camped out in a crappy motel room at the end of the strip. The place is crawling with vampires, and you have the fleeting worry that someone will recognize you as the doppelganger, but most of them are younger than your Salvatores and, even if they _had_ a bone to pick with “Katherine,” it’s apparently common knowledge how protective and dangerous Stefan and Damon are of her-slash-you.

In some sort of convoluted “let’s split up, we’ll cover more ground” plan that you came up with and are immensely surprised that Stefan agreed with (though, not as surprised as you should be, because Stefan is growing tired of this never-ending game of hide-and-search), a dark-haired vampire finds you picking your way around to the back of a club whose walls are shaking with the volume of the music blasting inside.

He is slightly shorter than Damon and has a wider face, though his cheekbones are just about as well-cut. The mischievous danger lurking in his brown eyes didn’t seem to fit with the wavy hair on his head and the slightly-boyish look that still touched his features, and you had never seen or heard of Enzo before Damon had gone, but suddenly you know exactly who has you pinned up against a gritty brick wall.

“Where’s Damon?” you ask him, speaking with what appears to be astonishing ease despite the hand clamped around your throat. You think it should startle you more than it does, how familiar you are with supernatural beings not-so-subtly threatening your life.

The man chuckles, danger not leaving his eyes, even as he tightens his grip around your neck. You’re going to have bruises, you’re sure, but you force yourself to refrain from making any sort of noise of discomfort.

“And you must be Elena,” he says, cocking his head to one side and speaking as though they’ve met under better circumstances and he didn’t come out of nowhere just to trap you. “Damon’s told me _so_ much about you.”

“Enzo,” you return, swallowing resolutely and shifting your shoulders to that you’re standing straighter. “Unfortunately, he hasn’t mentioned _you_ at all.”

“I can only imagine,” Enzo says, chuckling coldly. “He wouldn’t have wanted to scare his little human pet.”

Everything in you is screaming at you to defend yourself, prove to him just how much the opposite you are, but you notice movement behind his shoulder, and then your eyes are focusing on Damon, standing at the far end of the grimy alleyway, back illuminated by the lights pouring out from the open doorway of the club. His fangs are out and his eyes are veined and red. He’s wearing a rumpled white t-shirt and has blood all over his mouth and chin, dripping slowly down, staining the shirt in a way that absolutely should terrify you more than it does.

Enzo doesn’t even bother to glance back, shifting his hand to clamp around your mouth.

“Damon,” he says, voice lilting. “How nice of you to join us. I thought I told you to wait inside?”

“You did,” Damon says, dragging a thumb through the blood on his chin and popping it into his mouth, sucking it off obscenely, eyes locked on your face. There is recognition in them--he knows exactly who you are and why you’re here--but there is none of that warmth only reserved for you.

“Couldn’t resist joining in on the fun, could you?” Enzo asks, his eyes widening in a crappy imitation of Damon’s eye thing as he keeps eye contact with you even as he speaks. “My buddy Damon here,” he tells you conspiratorially, “quite the party animal.”

You stare at him, cold, unafraid, unimpressed, and he chuckles, shaking his head.

“Your little pet doesn’t really know how to take rejection,” he tells Damon, finally turning away to look at his friend. “I think you should teach her a...more _permanent_ lesson.”

There are one--two--three beats of silence before Damon smiles that slow, lazy, _feral_ grin of his that he’d flashed often back when he first blew into Mystic Falls, and begins the slow saunter towards you and Enzo.

The reckless abandon is swarming around inside you. In a truly inspired moment of complete idiocy, you bite down as hard as you can on Enzo’s hand, feeling the blood burst into your mouth as you swallow as much of it as you can in the few seconds you have before he snaps out of his shock.

“Why you _little_ \--” he begins, turning back to you, fury blazing in his eyes now, shifting his already-healing hand so that it’s fisting in your hair, yanking your head back against the cement hard. Damon is merely watching, boredom all over his face.

“Go ahead,” you bite out, licking the last of Enzo’s blood off of your lips. You have no idea what’s come over you. You’ve done a lot of crazy things in the past few years, but this takes the cake--and all the other fecking deserts as well. “Let him kill me. I’ve got his blood in my system now,” you say, trying his feral grin on for size and uncharacteristically reveling in the feel of it twisting your mouth. “I’ll be around forever.”

And the real fun of it all is that, even when his humanity was on and fully functional, there was always that small part of Damon who would have loved nothing more than to take the choice away from you--the bit of him who would rather have you around forever to hate him than to have you around for sixty years, thanking him for respecting your choice. The only fear is that he’s so far gone that he won’t care anymore. Care about something as important as _this_. That he’ll reject you, tell you to leave, let Enzo take your life.

It’s a long minute until Damon opens his mouth. “Enzo,” he says finally, and you watch as Enzo slumps with submission, fingers loosening on your hair, lithe body stepping back another moment later. “Let me talk to her,” Damon says, eyes only on his friend, refusing to so much as glance in your direction. As soon as Enzo leaves, the faux confidence mostly drains out of your body, and the after taste of his blood is burning in the recesses of your mouth, leaving you feeling grimier than the now-dark alley could ever hope to be.

“You’ve gotten reckless,” Damon says to the wall behind your shoulder, and you laugh harshly.

“I’ve gotten desperate,” you correct him, surging forward without hesitation--because, really, you’ve just ingested vampire blood with the sole purpose of forcing him to make the decision between turning you and backing off and there’s really nothing worse he could do to you than you just did to him. You keep moving until you’re closer than socially acceptable, reaching up to use the heal of your palms to gently-but-firmly remove the rest of the coagulating blood from his face.

You know what it all means, that he couldn’t let someone take your humanity away from you, even with his firmly lodged off. You know what it means, and it has made you simultaneously hopeful and exhausted.

Damon ducks his head down a little, giving you better access, watching as you wipe the blood from your palms to your jeans without a spare thought. His eyes narrow a little at your neck, and you can feel the pain of Enzo’s fingers digging into your jugular. The fact that any marks haven’t already gone away with the blood in your system speaks volumes to how hard he was gripping you, and you swallow at Damon’s heavy-lidded gaze that refuses to move from your throat.

“Damon,” you breathe, swooping your hands back up to hold his face in between them, sliding one back further so that your fingers can tangle in his hair. “ _Damon_.”

“He didn’t make me stay away,” Damon whispers to you as you pull his head closer. You’ve just wipped someone’s _blood_ away from his face, and you’ve just _drank_ someone else’s, but you’re so giddy with relief at seeing him that you want nothing more than to kiss him in this very moment.

You don’t though. You know it isn’t the time.

“Whatever you did,” you say, because you know Damon, and there’s nothing that could keep him away from you unless it involved killing someone, “it doesn’t matter.”

He breaks away from you suddenly, pushing you away and dragging his own hand through his hair, turning sharply so that he’s not looking at you any longer. “What a fucking lie,” he says harshly, laughing without mirth. “Of course it matters, Elena. _Be the better man_ ,” he mocks and you swallow hard, feeling the burn of tears in your eyes but refusing on point to cry. 

“Damon--”

“I can’t be what you want.”

“Damon--” you try, but he’s not interested.

His shoulders sag a little bit as he lets out a gust of breath in defeat. “And I don’t want to be something I’m not.”

“ _Damon_!” You snap loudly, stepping forward boldly and reaching out, grabbing his hand and tugging it towards you, ignoring the way he’s trying to shake it away. If he really didn’t want you touching him, he’d use an awful lot more force than he was. “ _You’re_ what I want.”

He laughs again. Doesn’t turn to look at you. You yank on his arm, forcing him to spin around, but he keeps his eyes off of your face.

“You’re what I want,” you say again, less angry, more sincere. “Idiotic comments, stupid acting-out murders, flirty eyes and all. Of _course_ it matters that you killed someone, but I never asked you to change for me--I wanted you to change for yourself. I _love_ you, Damon. Not Matty or Stefan, not some watered-down, well-mannered version of you. _You_.”

Damon still refuses to meet your eyes, so you reach up and grip his face again, forcing his head to turn with a strength that would hurt any human. Striking blue meets brown and you swallow, feeling the ridiculous tiny smile pulling at your lips purely from the sensation of being this close to him, of seeing his eyes, flaring with that suppressed hope.

“Come back,” you whisper, rising on your toes to press your mouth to his, dragging his lower lip out with your teeth for a second, drawing away just a hair-breadth. “Come back to me.”

You didn’t see very well, the last time Damon’s humanity came back, but it’s a sight to behold. It’s as though something snaps deep inside, emotions playing out on his face and fighting for dominance in his eyes--lust and rage, warmth and fear and fury, and love. You don’t back off or flinch away from any of it, you watch as he crumples into you, face pressed into the side of your neck, suspicious dampness pooling on your skin that he will most definitely deny later.

-

You find Stefan and return home, exhausted and blown away by how you’d acted. Exhausted and blown away and _proud_. Fighting for something you wanted had always been harder for you than fighting for the lives of others.

Damon shows up three months later, late at night, while you’re brushing your teeth after your shower. Jeremy’s already asleep in the next room, Ric in Jenna’s. Your window has been open since you returned home despite the rapidly cooling nights, and he lands on your floor with a thump, walking quickly and purposefully towards you, snatching your tooth brush from your fingers and tossing it onto the sink. He presses his palms to your face, tilting your head back and lowering his mouth onto yours, toothpaste and dripping hair and all.

There is no moment of adjustment before you’re kissing him back, sinking a hand into his hair, wet from the near-winter rain, your other one gripping his shoulder hard, the familiar leather cold against your warmth. One of his hands slips down to the small of your back and yanks you closer, closer, closer, and he’s got you bent back a bit like that famous World War II photograph, and he’s kissing you like a starving man having his first meal in years, devouring your lips with his and plundering your mouth tongue, teeth jumping in messily.

The thumb you’ve got on his cheekbone can feel the lacework of black veins rushing out because his control is struggling, overwhelmed, and a fang nicks your lip, but the heady sensation of your blood and toothpaste and his bourbon and _Damon_ means you’re flying high.

When he finally pulls back after what feels like a lifetime come and gone, you’re panting and dizzy from the very lethal combination of nothing but Damon and too-small amounts of oxygen and the giddiness because _he came home_.

“I love you,” you tell him, looking him in the eye, your voice quiet and dripping with the sheer honest truth of it all. There is a brief flash of worry that he won’t say it back to you, but in all the time you’ve known him, Damon has never disappointed you.

“You are my life,” he says, and you hear everything else: _the reason for my humanity, the only one who has never given up on me_. “I love _you_ , Elena.”

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me or prompt me on tumblr [@rosalinesbenvolio](http://www.rosalinesbenvolio.tumblr.com)!!


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